Kamen Rider Psi
by DoubleDutchBus
Summary: Shirou Deva is a man with endless curiosity but little ambition. When a strange belt inhabited by the soul of a survivor of a long-dead people ends up in his hands, he must transform into Kamen Rider Psi and fight against the dangerous Incarnates and their enigmatic masters. As if that wasn't enough, he must also unravel the missing memories of the last four months of his life.


The universe is vast and frightening. Its endless depth and breadth is something that humans can measure in numbers, but its scale is not something the human brain can meaningfully comprehend. An endlessly cascading darkness containing mysteries and terrors uncountable and unfathomable. Of course, not all fear this; to many, the void is a source of great hope and awe.

Night blanketed the city of Sendai, the people of the city sleeping soundly in their homes, protected from the bitter cold. In an unassuming park by an unassuming neighborhood, there is a sudden pulse, sending a ripple of strange dark waves outwards. It slightly shakes the branches on every tree, sending several leaves drifting to the ground. It raced out, steadily blanketing the city before dissipating, and then all was silent again.

In an underground facility, cleverly hidden from the world and heavily fortified, equipment went crazy. The lab and command staff working the night shift were startled into wakefulness as the day they'd been preparing for finally arrived. Technicians buzzed and rushed back and forth as readings were analyzed and a response was prepared.

Back in the deepest level of the containment area of this facility, an odd-looking, seemingly unmoving belt used this golden opportunity to hatch its plan. It let out a pulse of power, almost like that last pulse in miniature, disabling the equipment watching it. As engrossed as the staff were, they didn't even notice as the belt transformed into a bizarre tentacled creature and slowly squished its boneless body through a tiny opening in the door, normally sealed airtight, that had been opened just a little by the short circuit.

The creature, elated, slithered away and crept back out to the outside world through the vents, leaving behind a replica of the belt to fool them for a while longer.

 _"A new vessel... surely one will be there, at that place..."  
_

* * *

In a cheap apartment not quite dingy enough to be called run-down, a young Japanese man of average height with brown hair cut into a messy undercut woke up and stumbled out of bed. Dressed in only a pair of pajama pants, a dirty tee shirt and a pair of shoes he hadn't bothered taking off before collapsing into bed, he wordlessly walked to the door. He didn't know why he was leaving his house at this hour, and in fact was hardly thinking at all. It felt like a heavy fog was pressing down on him from all sides, keeping him in a daze.

This young man is Shirou Deva, a man who had neither found a purpose nor was searching for one. He shivered, the cold air biting at his exposed arms, tanned from frequent time spent outdoors doing any number of activities from month to month, and the small, suppressed part of his consciousness that was still vaguely aware wondered why he had not thought to bring a coat. As he continued for another four miles before reaching a public park he liked to sometimes go jogging through, that same part of Shirou noted that he couldn't feel his fingers, toes or ears anymore, and that this was bad, because it meant he might start to suffer frostbite soon in this cold.

As he entered the park and heads into a clearing not visible from the street due to the tree cover, he noted four other people were there with him, all standing still and not saying a word and the tiny shred of awareness grew unsettled, noting that he should be panicking and trying to leave. Instead, Shirou simply stood right by the rest of them and waited.

After about a minute, someone appeared in a burst of light and sound. 'Someone', because he couldn't make out the person's appearance at all; a shimmering field of pulsating something clung to their form, making it impossible to notice any features about this thing beyond a vaguely humanoid shape.

"You are the first of many. It is time to begin your task," it solemnly intoned; its voice was warped as well, so it was impossible to make much out about that either. The figure held their hand up into the air and five ornate black keys materialized. Shirou's heart began to race and his breath started hitching as every ounce of his awareness was pushed to the breaking point, fighting the influence over him to try and get away. It was for nought, as he could barely twitch. The feeling was something akin to sleep paralysis, or like being trapped under the pressure of some huge body of water.

The figure began to approach Shirou, who had stood at the end of the line. "I will not waste my time with this in the future. When your juniors have reached maturity, you will be the ones to awaken them," added the figure nonchalantly, as it somehow inserted the key directly into the middle of Shirou's forehead. At first, he felt nothing, but then the key was turned, and agony began to bloom inside his head, before spreading down his neck and throughout his body. The fog over his mind was gone, replaced with a red haze of his pain as he felt his whole body breaking down and warping at once.

Shirou collapsed to his knees and started spasming and screaming, and the figure calmly began to do the same thing to the others one at a time. It moved with an unfeeling efficiency, as if it was merely hammering in nails rather than violating every possible human right. Through the pain, he noticed the figure continuing to speak. "Now, awaken, you beasts, and transcend that feeble flesh."

Phasing in and out of consciousness, Shirou wasn't sure where the strange thing went. Slowly being consumed bit by bit and wanting nothing more than to curl up and let the pain end quickly, the thing that was quickly becoming less and less human, the thing called Shirou Deva, reached a simple but courageous decision.

"I want to live! I wanna live dammit!" He struggled to his feet, every moment of it a battle on its own, and began stumbling away, anywhere away from this forsaken place. Sucking in breaths of cold air through breaking, shifting teeth that were slowly growing into fangs, he forced himself to move, despite the pain, despite not even knowing where he was going. Again and again he repeated: "I wanna live! I wanna live!"

Scales bursting through his skin and hands morphing painfully as the many small bones shattered and melted and reformed, Shirou stumbled out of the park and into a residential district. Little flashes of the past flickered in and out of his mind like bolts of lightning.

* * *

 _"Well ain't that somethin'! Kid, you've got amazing natural reflexes! Come join my dojo. I think you'll take a liking to it."_

 _"Oi, Deva! Who the hell do you think you are, talkin' to us like that!?" "Give it a rest, Kiba. He's always like that. Ain't a single genuine thing about him."_

 _"I don't get it, Senpai. Why don't you go pro? You could enter any circuit right now and do well. If you trained full time you could be the champ!"_

 _"Shirou, I know that these messages annoy you, but can you please call back? I promise I won't make it a big hassle. I'm your mother, I can't help but be worried about you. We need to talk about your career options."_

 _"Eh, screw all those guys, try'na clip our wings! They just want to throw us into the system like everybody else, until we're just a piece of the machine, something inhuman."_

 _"I'm glad you've made a quick recovery, Mr. Deva, but what happened was very worrying and you may very well relapse. I'm prescribing something to_ keep _you calm, and I want you to come in for a re-evaluation once a month for the next six months."_

 ** _"This way, come this way! Come over here, right now!"_**

* * *

Webbed, malformed hands reached out, blindly grasping ahead, trying to move forwards, with no idea of the destination-

"Help! Someone please help me!"

Suddenly, everything seemed to come back into focus.

Just twenty feet away was a huge, horrific creature, seven feet tall and like a mix of fish and man, its scaly skin a dark blue with big webbed burnt-orange fins sprouting from its arms, back and head. The source of the sound was a woman, desperately trying to escape the beast as it lunges forwards to snatch her up in its huge clawed hands.

With a colossal - no, downright mythic - force of will, Shirou Deva's body, like that, began to move, tearing up pavement to stop the monster. Without him realizing, the spreading alterations faded away, washing off him like thick, black oil, and his mind became more clear. With a short jump, he threw his whole body into a two-legged kick to the monster's knee(not exactly a practical or efficient move normally, but he gets the feeling nothing less will get this done), forcing it to collapse to one knee and making its hand come up just short of the woman, who continued to flee as quick as she could.

It was awesome... but he hadn't really thought of what came next. Hopping to his feet and throwing his body and head backwards as fast as possible, Shirou just barely avoided the now enraged monster's swipe. Running on pure adrenaline, Shirou's simply decided to square up. That thing was a fast runner; he couldn't escape it. This was do or die, and unless the police got here very soon, die he would. Although he wondered if the police's service pistols could even put the freak down at all.

Ducking under another blow, Shirou's fists hammered into the monster's scaly chest and belly with very little reaction, before he was forced to throw himself to the side to avoid the next swipe. Next, his foot lashed out like a striking viper in a powerful high kick to the face before the monster could pull back. This made it stumble back a few steps, and also shredded the sole of his shoe against its teeth. In just a second it came roaring back at him.

"Holy shit, what the hell are you!?" Demoralized and now very much on the defensive, Shirou made a dash for the edge of the park and vaulted over the metal railing just in time for the fishman's claws to miss his back by inches and smash a section of the railing off the rest of it. Thinking quickly, he snatched it up, stepped inside of the next swing and thrust it upwards right into the beast's face, forcing it back another half-step. Immediately, he followed up by bashing it over the head as hard as he could, making the metal rod ring and vibrate and denting it a little on the creature's head.

Roaring with rage, the creature rushed forwards like a tidal wave, and Shirou lost whatever momentum he had gained and then some. A grazing hit gouged a deep cut into his chest and shoulder, and another tore open his leg. None of it life-threatening, but dangerously slowing him down. Desperate, Shirou dodged a punch and smashed the impromptu staff into his enemy's temple as hard as he could and tried to follow up, but he was too slow this time. The monster batted his next blow aside and threw a punch right at him, too close to dodge. All Shirou could do was raise the railing section in the way to block!

It wasn't as much help as he was hoping. The massive fist smashed right through it and into his chest, making his ribs creak dangerously and sending flying six feet and tumbling another twelve. Shirou felt the warm, sickly feeling of big, heavy bruising forming on his chest as he desperately tried to stand, to sit up, to get his bearings at least. Painfully aware of his own impending death, this was where Shirou Deva first met by far the strangest thing he'd ever seen.

* * *

He couldn't make out much through his blurry, swimming vision, but some tentacled _thing_ quickly crawled up his leg and began wrapping its long tendrils around his waist. Suddenly, he heard a voice. _"Gifted enough to resist a potent memetic virus and strong willed enough to overcome it. Prodigious fighting ability too... Yes, you'll do wonderfully."_ Shirou blearily looked around to see who was talking, noting with some alarm that the fishman was stalking closer, eyeing its difficult prey warily.

 _"You won't find anything by looking; I'm speaking to your mind. Now, just do exactly as I say if you want to survive. Do you understand?" "I- wh- Who are-" "You said several words there, but none of them were 'yes, I understand'," The voice deadpanned. "I'm the being giving you a nice big hug. Look now." Leaning on a tree for support(Holy shit, he got knocked back into the park!), Shirou struggled to his feet and glanced down. To his shock, rather than a weird little octopus-thing, there was now a full metal belt, yellow and silver, with an odd bulky contraption where the buckle would be._

 _Lacking the energy to be enthused by crazy shit at this point, Shirou simply let out a big, exasperated sigh. "What in the world is happening to me?" He whined. "Something amazing. It'll give you the power to blow that Incarnate away! Now quit wasting time and press the button on the underside of the buckle," Replied the... belt(!?) urgently. Shirou sighed again and shook his head in exasperation. "I'm talking with a belt on top of everything..." he mused, but he followed the instructions._

 _After he pushed the button, the top of the buckle unfolded to either side, revealing a panel with three binary switches on the right side - one bronze, one silver and one gold - and a circular dial in the middle. The left side was oddly blank. The voice let out a sigh of relief. "Alright, it seems to be working fine. After how long it's been inactive, I was a bit worried. Now, hit the silver switch, turn the dial ninety degrees and close the buckle." Shirou did as he was told. When he flipped the silver switch, a computerized voice, from the belt itself this time rather than in his head, called out suddenly._ _ **"FORCE!"**_ _Next, he turned the dial, and a blue light began seep out from the seams in the buckle. The belt spoke up again._ _ **"MILD!"**_ _Perplexed and worried, Shirou hesitantly closed the buckle back up, the deep blue light still shining within._

 _"Alright, now hit the button on the top and say 'Henshin'! Hurry!" Shirou looked up upon hearing the sound of crashing, heavy footsteps. The monster was barreling right at its distracted opponent, and would be on him in a few seconds!_

 _Raising a closed right fist high and an open left hand low, Shirou quickly swapped their positions, hitting the button with his right thumb while crossing his left arm over his chest and up above his right shoulder with the hand flat and open._

 _"Henshin!"_

* * *

A/N: Chapters will follow the format of two per episode, with the breakpoint being in the same spot as the mid-episode eyecatch.


End file.
